We’re mountain biking at 12,500ft within the excessive Andes, previous dusty pueblos, alongside grime tracks by the fields of purple earth that give Peru’s Sacred Valley its identify. Sacred due to its fertility and skill to assist the best, fattest corn and a mind-boggling 2,800 kinds of potato.
The going has been unusually robust; the air up right here is low in oxygen, however the stupendous ring of jagged crags and the coca toffees we have been chewing appear to have acquired us to the highest of the world.
As we descend, heading in direction of the sunken terraces of Moray, one of many 3,000 archaeological Inca websites that litter the Valley, we cease for a breather at a subject of what might be red-hot pokers.
Golden scrumptious: Lima’s grand Authorities Palace is a reminder of Peru’s colonial previous
The crop has floppy burnt-orange heads and bright-pink stalks, just like the legs of flamingos.
‘Quinoa!’ says our information Juan Carlos, beaming with delight. ‘It is well-known now, no?’
Certainly, it’s. Not so way back, solely health-food nuts would have recognized about this tiny Peruvian grain; at the moment, gross sales of quinoa have rocketed. You will discover it in all places, a high-protein superfood, raining down in your plate, in your grocery store shelf, in your lunchtime salad field from Pret.
There are solely 300 sorts of quinoa grown right here (together with a shiny purple selection that turns your tongue scarlet), however it’s just one in a line-up of indigenous Peruvian substances that has come to dominate the culinary world.
Spoilt for alternative: An abundance of fruit could be discovered on the markets in Peru, together with papaya, physalis and prickly pear fruit
Even in a humble spot, there is a superb nationwide spirit. Above: Service with a smile
Some are acquainted — amaranth, acai — others are relative newcomers to our plates, however I can assure you will be listening to extra of them quickly: maca, lucuma, camu camu, cocona, yakon and huacatay, a black mint historically served alongside crisp pork crackling.
Many cannot be discovered wherever else on earth, and now that British Airways has direct flights to Lima from Gatwick, they’re inside attain of the brand new breed of traveller who will cross half the world for an honest lunch.
Any foodie tour begins in Lima, Peru’s huge capital sprawling some 60 miles alongside the desert Pacific coast.
Lately, Lima is a cosmopolitan sizzling spot the place lovely individuals drink Pisco cocktails at colonial-era bars comparable to Ayahuasca, or take yoga lessons on the terrace of the spanking new Resort B within the Barranco, earlier than swinging over to Mario Testino’s picture gallery in Miraflores.
Testino is a god right here, however should you ask for the identify of different well-known Peruvians, it is the cooks’ names that crop up — Gaston Acurio (the granddaddy of all of them, ‘he is handled just like the Pope’), Pedro Miguel Schiaffino at Malabar, Virgilio Martinez at Central. These males are Lima’s rock ‘n’ roll royalty.
But it surely’s not simply the high-end new-wave eating places of Lima that draw within the gastronomic vacationers — it is the hundreds of humble family-run picanterias, the bodegas serving sashimi-style tiradito and ceviche, marinated in a kicky ‘tiger’s milk’ of lime and chili.
It is the street-food carts serving anticuchos meat skewers slathered in garlicky sauce, the stuffed rocoto chillis, and the Pisco bars on each nook.
I keep on the Westin, a shiny tower of a lodge within the San Isidro district, its chef a celebrity and its breakfast bar serving each superfood beneath the solar, from inca berries to bee pollen.
Cuzco’s Coricancha Solar Temple is an amalgam of sacred Inca structure overlaid with grand courtyards from the Spanish colonial period
Town itself could also be traffic-choked, however I found an infectious vitality right here and a progressive perspective which welcomes guests.
‘Come, eat, eat!’ one aged girl calls out to me out there of Chincheros; she wears the standard tall hat and felted skirt of her ancestors, and sits within the baking solar frying pork rind and sipping chicha, the potent native corn brew.
Even right here, in a spot so humble, there’s a superb nationwide spirit.
Cuzco, Peru’s historic capital excessive within the Andes and an hour’s flight from Lima, is the place you discover among the nation’s most fun cooks.
Lots of the dishes now gracing the refined tables right here originate from pre-Inca occasions.
Lately, Lima is a cosmopolitan sizzling spot the place lovely individuals drink Pisco cocktails at colonial-era bars comparable to Ayahuasca (above)
You’ll be able to see recognisable substances painted on the traditional ceramics housed on the unmissable Larco Museum in Lima; whereas within the Seventeenth-century Andean Baroque portray of The Final Supper in Cuzco’s marvellously gaudy cathedral, Christ and the Apostles are all set to tuck right into a dish of roasted guinea pig.
Between meals, we go to Cuzco’s Coricancha Solar Temple, an amalgam of sacred Inca structure overlaid with grand courtyards from the Spanish colonial period. Lots of the beautiful eating places and inns are constructed inside Inca partitions.
On the Palacio del Inka lodge, we’re served coca tea, a standard treatment for altitude illness, and relaxation our backs in opposition to the longest unique Inca wall within the nation.
That is the story right here: a wedding of the historic and the subtle buzz of the brand new. You will discover it in all places on this magnificent nation, the place historic huacas (temples) sit aspect by aspect with cool bars.
You’ll be able to see recognisable substances painted on the traditional ceramics on the Larco Museum
Again in Lima, I meet British-Peruvian chef Martin Morales, the person behind London’s acclaimed eating places Ceviche and Andina.
‘We’re a nation obsessive about meals,’ he shrugs. ‘However there’s actual soul right here, too. This (he factors to clear slivers of river trout tiratador and melting cubes of ceviche) is soul meals. You will get superb dishes from a gap within the wall on a again avenue.’
Like everybody I meet in Peru, Morales is filled with delight in his nation’s culinary endeavour. ‘Look,’ he says as we depart El Mercado, ‘there’s historical past in each dish, the results of 7,000 years of cooking, and we’re solely scratching the floor.’
Anticipate much more from Peru on a plate close to you quickly — although the coca tea, I believe, is unlikely ever to make it by Customs.
